ABSTRACT
Are we animal agents? This chapter argues for the following claims:
The concept of action in general is closely linked with that of animacy, i.e., the concept of being an animal. Thus causal exceptionalism for human agency, i.e., the claim that only human beings are agents, is false.
The Cartesian argument from human language against animal agents lacks soundness in the face of empirical evidence from the zoological sciences. It does not follow, however, that human language does not signal some important capacity that is unique to human beings within the natural world.
Action is compared with certain other natural phenomena as a kind of top-down causation. Recent analyses have concluded that such causation features within a supervenience relation between the whole and its parts. I offer some concerns about the shortcomings of this metaphysical account of action.
